Amer. Rest. Mvmt. (Stone-Campbell)

If we took the microphones and the electronic effects away from half the vocal “artists” in the world, we would hear something far less impressive. (This assertion begs questions around artistry.)

If we took the microphones away from those with the gift of gab who are in leadership positions, they might talk less, and the rest of us would waste less time. I regularly observe a lack of audio-consciousness on the part of those who would probably do better if they were only made aware. Conference calls with poor microphone placement and paper shuffling and people muttering…. Processes are sometimes hindered, and the experience can be frustrating. I digress.

If we took the microphones away from half the men who pray aloud and read scripture publicly in many churches, we would hear little to nothing, although many of us have probably heard such machismatic mumbo-jumbo as “Hey, I don’t need a microphone. Heh-heh.”

Did you notice that I referred to “men” who pray aloud and read scripture publicly? What about women? If we took the microphones away from church venues altogether, much of the “official” sense would fade from the minds of those who have concerns about women’s roles “in church.” I myself care about such things, but not necessarily with the same level of concern, or for the same reasons, as many of my historically closest siblings. Today, I’m wanting to pay attention to only a side aspect of this age-old struggle: the physical setting. I would put it this way: The more informal the setting, i.e., the less official and pulpit-like (with microphone), the less present the women’s-role issues. Of course, the size of the venue can be an issue; if it’s a large hall or other acoustical factors are present, amplification is necessary.

Thoughts of pulpits and microphones are surface-level thoughts, and people’s actual concerns are not necessarily so shallow. Or are they? If such physical items are removed from the scenario, and if a guy’s concerns then fade a little, I’d say he wasn’t sure what really mattered to him in the first place. Did the bare fact that a woman spoke create the issue for him, or was it the setting in which she spoke? Is it her voice when there are men present that disturbs, or is it the audible voice amid pulpits and microphonesand pews? Perhaps a conservative or narrow-minded person doesn’t need to ignore his conscience but to ponder why he feels the way he feels. If the issues seem to fade when the surroundings are less official-looking, less institutional . . . then I’d suggest that the woman’s voice wasn’t the only concern in the first place.

A particularly traditionally minded person once spoke for many of his mindset while on a youth retreat. He noted a few nontraditional elements in what we were doing in that setting and commented setting, we could “get away with” more where we were (in a big cabin in the woods). The praise team didn’t bother him there, for instance. See what I mean?

Given my background/scriptural understandings and some of my personal history, the reader won’t be too surprised that my suspicion of “church leadership” has not faded. I think my church paradigm overall has been morphing and growing ever since. It has reached a point of no return and very little likelihood of being influenced in a different direction. I say this not to discourage dialogue but to acknowledge a reality. I simply have no interest in what smacks of pandering to a clergy person or to a hierarchy or any other structure. These organizational things trouble me too deeply. Lest a CofC reader think I am talking only about other denominations, I will clarify that I think the problem is of the same hue (although typically not as deeply tinted) in CofC congregations as in, say, Methodist or Baptist ones. It is notable that small, non-franchise “community church” groups are likely to be equally un-healthfully reliant on the “pastor.”

I do affirm that, when possible, people with training and/or experience should work in some areas. I think here of the teaching of children, the counseling of youth and married people, and the exposition and exegesis of scripture. Talents, training, and experience do have their places in the healthy, vibrant functioning of churches and other Christian groups, but titles and staff ministry positions can distract and can even be found to compromise the health of a body of people. Although in just the right situation, I suppose I would myself consider taking a church salary for some kind of church role or roles, I really do not believe in that kind of church anymore. That doesn’t mean I don’t find good people in institutional churches, and that doesn’t mean I don’t go to them regularly. I do, and I do. I simply cannot invest in them or dream about them as I once did.

Back to the present
So, now that I am old enough and experienced enough to be an elder or pastor or shepherd or bishop just about anywhere (no matter how the given group conceives of the label), I have to wonder about another aspect of being the church elder I once aspired to be: wisdom. (Please recall that I have recently been drawn to the “wisdom literature” in the Hebrew Bible. See here and here.) It is assumed that the old have gained some wisdom. Not that I’m all that old, but I am a whole lot older than I was 20 years ago. So, while I thought I had all the main things right in my head in my 20s or 30s, I later learned that that I didn’t. And now, even if I wanted to be an elder in an institutional church, I wouldn’t think I was wise enough. I’m surely a little wiser than I was when I was 20 or 30 or 40, but I would feel so inadequate if I were in a role that caused a church group to view me as inherently wise. Here is another way to put that: I think all pastoral pedestals ought to be destroyed and discarded—especially any that any unsuspecting person would try to put me on!

Enter another assumption I learned as a kid, based on a patternistic, proof-texty reading of two brief passages in Paul’s (so-called) pastoral letters: maybe a special level of wisdom comes from having a plurality of children in the home. A 33-year-old father with three kids (like my dad was) goes through all sorts of interpersonal situations, and by the time he’s in his 50s or 60s, he surely has learned a great deal about how to “shepherd” different personalities within a group. I, on the other hand, have an only child, and I haven’t always manifest wisdom even in dealing with the one.

When I was having a heart-to-heart with my son a year or so ago, I told him that there are some benefits and some drawbacks to having an older (more presbytish!) dad. On the downside, I am wounded (deeply so), and life’s experience brings as much incapacity as capability. I am tired and generally less than patient with antics than a younger dad. On the upside, there are experiences and insights I can share with him that could not be shared by a younger father of a nine-year-old. I don’t think I’m a very good soul-shepherd, but I’m a passable physical-needs overseer for him. I could teach him things that a 33-year-old father probably couldn’t. (I’m rambling in a sea of inadequacy.) I would hope I have additional wisdom, but I’m not so sure most of the time.

I feel pretty experienced in “the faith” (depending on how you define that), and I’m “apt to teach,” and I might manifest a couple other qualities mentioned in Paul’s lists, but I don’t feel wise enough to be an elder or a dad. I will never be an elder in a traditional sense. I am a dad, however, and I can only hope that I have more wisdom than I did before Jedd was born, and more likelihood of using it in difficult situations. Good grief. He just turned nine, and we have not even had difficult situations yet, really. I am terrified of when he is 11 and 12 and 14. God, give me wisdom.

In our day, the notion of “church leadership” appears as something of an overlay on New Testament principles and scenarios. For some, the disconnect (between the status quo and the original info) is tantamount to heresy; for others, it’s just the way things are, a non-issue. As for myself, it’s complicated (I know, like many other things). I have some definitive ideas, but there are gray areas, and I don’t care about all the same subtopics anymore.

For starters: I find the contemporary use of “pastor” to represent a human misdirection, sometimes running counter to God’s purposes, although almost always well-intended, at least at the outset of a “pastoral ministry.” In the NC scriptures, I don’t see the word “pastor” referring to a role that’s much like today’s pastoral roles, and I think that’s worthy of note. Primarily, I’m interested not in a strict-minded, narrow approach but in an awareness of the kinds of leader roles that emerged in the early church. In other words, it’s not about the title or label, really; it’s about what people are and what they do. One problem arises when a Bible word is used to refer to a current role, thereby linking the two and imbuing the modern practice, title, or role with supposedly biblical authority. Such labeling doesn’t mean a practice, title, or role is necessarily bad; it just means we have jumped to a conclusion.

I’d say we ought to differentiate roles and titles in each unique situation, and we ought to explore nuances, and we ought to engage in word studies and historical studies, too. Is it possible that (the Greek antecedents of) “bishop,” “overseer,” “shepherd,” “pastor,” and “elder” might describe similar (but not necessarily the same) roles in the first-century church? And aren’t these labels commonly distinguished differently today? John A.T. Robinson has commented that the letters to Timothy and Titus “do not presuppose monarchical episcopacy” (ruling bishops) that appeared at least by the 2nd century.” Pauline writings, on the other hand, appear to assume the “equivalence of bishop and presbyter”—or overseer and elder, in alternate translation. °

At this juncture I could be found betraying a mentality that’s now part and parcel of Church of Christ operational doctrine. I am not particularly interested in whether two centuries of sectarian history in this respect have been on target, nor do I care much anymore about a patternistic re-appropriation of first-century titles and labels. After all, we are separated by millennia and language, and this whole scene ought to benefit from more thorough, careful examination. I am after an honest assessment of church leadership roles that I see as having run amok. I think Christians should all be deeply interested in meaningful leadership roles, quite apart from the titles and routines of tradition—no matter whose tradition, and how deeply or widely it is entrenched. With all that said. . . .

Once upon a dream
As a child, I never envisioned myself becoming a preacher, despite being a “good kid” and a good Bible student who was always at church. (I developed a moderate stutter that stayed with me into high school and beyong, so perhaps no one else wanted to see me turn out to be a preacher, either! I could always have done better than the devoted but poorly spoken Mennonite man who muttered, sometimes unintelligibly, for 50 minutes two Sundays ago, but that’s beside the point.) I do recall wistfully that my youthful vision for later adult life involved being a church elder. That role seemed important to me, and the men I knew as elders were worthy of respect. I knew of a couple of elders who were also preaching ministers, and that was generally viewed askance in my tradition because one could be viewed as one of those “pastors” who had too much power. Although I retain some of the same philosophy of suspicion, most of this was in a very different time and place for me. Worlds apart, really. Elders were elders, and preachers were preachers, and I didn’t know anyone personally who went by the title “pastor.” I did know fairly well a man who became a church elder when he was 35.¹ By the time I passed that John F. Kennedy age, I was already past thinking I would ever be an elder. Soon after that, I decided I never wanted to be one. It was moot, really: I was soon to be a divorcé and had no children—that those facts would disqualify me in most churches I cared about.

Background understandings
But what is, or was, an elder? A pastor? A minister? A “clergyman”? A childhood anecdote should help to illuminate some of my predilections. There was a period in which my dad was visiting people hospitals fairly regularly, and he apparently noticed there were “clergy” parking spaces . . . so he had the wood shop teacher in his school make him a “C L E R G Y” block. It stayed in the glove compartment, but Dad put it in his window when he was at the hospital. A schoolteacher by vocation, and also a servant of God and of the church, my dad was somewhat more narrowly read than I in Christian matters. Nonetheless, he stood on solid ground in conscientiously believing he was a minister or “clergyman” just as much as someone with a salary and a title on the letterhead, and I believe he was right.

It was later that I learned from my parents to be suspicious of the notion of “church staff.” I was not completely on their side at the time: once, I sided with a “junior minister” (with whom I was working closely) in the reality that there was a de facto church staff, and it probably needed to have a meeting periodically. For as long as I can remember, though, I have given absolutely no credence to the clergy-laity distinction, seeking to overturn that supposition in the minds and hearts of anyone over whom I have any influence. However, specified roles will naturally exist. What if one person works primarily in administrative/secretarial capacities, another is the primary teaching minister, and another serves and engages with families of young people? In a large church, their roles will interact and overlap, and it certainly doesn’t hurt for the three to talk together every now and then. They should be on the same page about procedures, philosophies, etc. Now, if one of them came from the “staff meeting” and declared to the whole church, “In our staff meeting this week, it was decided that X,” I would smell something going awry.² Neither a staff nor a staff meeting ought to become invested with power and influence—an institution itself, we might say—but just talking isn’t a bad thing.

Surely Paul, who couldn’t have envisioned seminarians or sound systems or elevated pulpits or “senior pastors” or parking lot ministries, would be supportive of dialogue among those who lead and teach. However, that which is acceptable in a modern scenario might never have been imagined by New Testament writers. It’s hard to imagine Jesus’s or Paul’s approving of an in-charge “pastor” who makes business decisions. Don’t fool yourself thinking that your senior pastor is different from the rest—a real spiritual leader and carer-of-the-flock, you say? He is on a pedestal and a platform, “elevated” to clergy status. You likely don’t even call him by his first name, or if you do, you prepend “pastor” or “brother.” He is surely a good man, but he is in a different class in your mind.

I remember that Dad once “pranked” our church’s preacher by asking for “the reverend” on the phone, so I learned that there were jokes to be made, but I don’t recall much else specific along these lines from my early years. I do tend to “blame” my parents (particularly, my dad) for maybe half of my negative inclination toward pedestalizing church staff. I don’t think it’s off-base, mind you, but it is quite a strong bias that has probably kept me from getting a hearing in some situations.

For a couple decades, Dad had a deacon role that primarily involved making arrangements for assemblies and brief devotionals on Wednesday night. Mom taught ladies’ the Bible class. Neither of them would have been considered among the official leadership per se then. Later, Dad did become an elder/shepherd, and he could have been called the “head elder” in a couple of respects, although he would not have liked that at all.

Conclusion (next post): my continued, apparently irreversible “morphing” with respect to “church leadership,” and my relief that I will never be an “elder,” so to speak

° John A.T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament, 68.

¹ Being an “elder” at 35 sounds as silly as being a “senior pastor” at 30 or even 40. Hey, at least it beats the Mormon Church practice of college-aged “elders.” In the case of the man I knew, he was one of the two oldest men in a very young church, he had four children, and he was relatively experienced in the faith (or in church matters, at least), so his having been named an “elder” made some sense, speaking relatively.

² And something did go awry, with the “junior minister” mentioned above, in multiple ways. I think he became jealous of my influence, and my personal life took a decidedly negative turn, and I began to annoy him, and he rejected me, and he popped open a can of ego. I perceived that he was the primary purveyor of the “official clergy” mindset among the three “church staff” members, and he began to rub a few of us the wrong way, although he had an intensely loyal following. I wish he hadn’t later made a point of the logo he created, claiming it was his intellectual property and denying the church the use of it after he left. I’ve actually experienced similar feelings in my vocational world, so in a sense, I get it. And some of that would never have come to mind if (1) the other guy had not been a staff minister and (2) I had not learned what I had learned.

A man named Kevin Vanhoozer is apparently leading an effort to mark the 500th anniversary of Luther’s 95 theses with a new “confession of faith.” Click here to read about the “Reforming Catholic Confession”—a document that is by definition not Roman but that uses “catholic” in its purer sense.

Now, for three decades I’ve believed (and periodically asserted) that reforming and restoring should be conceived of as ongoing, perpetual processes. Never should one think he has arrived at a state of having been restored. Nor do I think it becoming or wise for a group, no matter how broad and inclusive it thinks it is, to call itself “Reformed.” Even if one were to include all the denominations that call Reformed theology their doctrinal home, you would still only have a slice of the Christian pie. There are many others, and a great many of us have hearts and brains, too. (One of the great offenses of the Christian church world is that so many people seem to think Reformed-type academics have dibs on scholarship.)

Vanhoozer’s name sounds Dutch to me, which leads me to presume he is from a Christian Reformed or Dutch Reformed tradition. Whether I’m correct on the identification or not, I find the efforts of this group at once admirable and ill-conceived. Admirable, because even a quick scan reveals that the “Reforming Catholic Confession” goes to some effort to be ecumenical, playing nice in the larger sandox. It’s even ostensibly scripture-oriented. But it is also ill-advised: at its essence, this confession is but one more tarpaulin covering scripture’s spiritual ground.

Part of me celebrates the idea of the Reformation—a complex of ideas and events, certainly not all attributable to Martin Luther. On principle, I tend to use process-oriented gerunds such as “reforming” or “restoring” instead of “reformed” or “Reformation,” but even the Protestant Reformation deserves some attention as an event. The confessions, not so much. I suspect that, in time (maybe just a couple of years!), history will find this particular “confession” to be little more than another historical curiosity, superimposed on scripture.

One summer many years ago, when I was back home from college with my family of origin, I took the opportunity to make a Wednesday evening “talk” (sermonette) at church. My talk was based on the last part of Ephesians 3. This was during the days of the burgeoning popularity of the NIV, but I had chosen another version of verses 14-15:

I fall on my knees before the Father (from whom all fatherhood, earthly or heavenly, derives its name), . . . – NT in Modern English, J.B. Phillips

A man in the congregation—one I remember as good-hearted and enthusiastic—complimented my talk in general terms but mentioned his disappointment in my choice of versions. This man was in a phase of emphasizing the congregational “family,” so he preferred the NIV:

I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. . . . – NIV [previous edition]

It happens that most reputable English translations have used the word “family” there, but the Phillips version opted for something different. Never mind that my growing lexical and linguistic senses now tell me that neither “fatherhood” nor “family” does the idea complete justice. The point here is that people want to think of church (and work and other) groups as “family.” Language like that makes us feel good. Except when it doesn’t.

At some point in my late teens or twenties,I had learned that certain Restoration Movement churches make a point of not having Bible classes on Sundays. These are the NC (Non-Class) congregations. My sketchy understanding of their point of view is this: they feel that, when the whole church comes together, it should not be divided. Perhaps that is another way of saying, “We’re all one ‘family,’ and we don’t split up and live in different Sunday-school-room “houses.” I would counter-assert that, while it would seem natural to be together every now and then, the sense of family does not necessarily vanish when the members are not in the same place.

A couple decades after college, a preacher raised a rather thoughtful challenge within the church setting: why do we insist on calling church “family” (a) when it is not really described that way in scripture, and (b) when in fact that language is likely distracting or harmful to a great number of people in the pews? Could there be more people who have negative associations with “family” than with the term “father” to describe or address God? (I think I’m doing justice to this preacher’s gist here.) In other words, many people don’t have very positive experiences with earthly family, so it’s probably a bad idea to insist on family language to refer to church.

Every day of every week of every year, divorce impacts people. Families are divided and re-divided, and as a result, the family—the unit that could be a bastion of devotion and love—has crumpled in the experience of way too many. While divorce was relatively unknown in my childhood neighborhood or in the church in which I grew up, the number of divorces I know of personally increases exponentially as each decade passes. I think of the kids my age or slightly older as I grew up, and I realize there is a higher and higher incidence of divorce . . . how few have had “normal” nuclear families of their own.

Within the last month,right here in our town, vandals in their early teens have been caught multiple times on top of buildings. They have done damage amounting to tens of thousands of dollars. Apparently these youths are notorious characters with the town police. Family is either absent or incapable in each case, and the police say there’s nothing they can do about the vandalism, because of legal limitations on criminal charges. Things could be different for these boys if broken family were not a factor.

After someone dies,some families are never quite whole, while others seem to grow closer. A teen-aged boy’s father dies, and the boy’s life takes a different direction. Estate settlements may bind siblings together, or they (the settlements and the siblings!) can turn ugly. A young husband or a young father dies, and life is forever changed for the survivors. Some falsely hold to a false legacy, and others honorably try to honor. Some of us are more resilient than others, but the effects of death in a family—whether untimely or not—are deep.

At just about any juncture,family can be a sphere of loss . . . and it can also be a beautiful part of human experience. Family can be broken for a while, and the most stubborn may go to their deathbeds feeling justified about something or other while estranged from those who should have been family. Other times, renewed relationship or reconciliation may occur. Family can be made of “blood” ties (plus my adopted sister!), or, whether or not that kind of supposedly familial tie fails, we may find family in other ways. Just yesterday, my wife referred to our study-partner friends as “family,” and told them where the glasses were so they could help themselves.

During this holiday time,some readers will be at large family gatherings. One generous family in our town is hosting a come-all pancake breakfast. Various members of my extended family are roughly 8, 15, 20, or 24 hours away, so the three of us will be enjoying a little day trip and some sights by ourselves. Wherever you are, and whoever you’re with, you might consider both the benefits and the failings of families. Turn from the not-so-good, and be thankful for the good.

Or, Was the 1st-Century Church a Helpless Embryo or an Ambulatory, Full-fledged Entity?

In terms of coming to understand and practice the authentic Christian faith, for me, it goes without saying that 1st-century documents carry more prescriptive authority than 2nd-, 3rd-, and 4th-century sources. Said another way: the later the writing, the more likely that undesirable/undesired ideas crept into it. The last blogpost probed along these lines, even to the point of distinguishing among decades and developments in the 1st century. Could some later New Testament documents have begun to veer from the originally laid out course?

This is not so much about a hermeneutic of authorization, i.e., that specific things were/were not authorized by God, and that such things were/were not codified in the writings. I do not take that approach. Nor can any careful NT reader ascertain that any particular 1st-century congregation—say, Antioch in the 40s or Philippi in the 60s—was iconic. I do, however, wonder whether the letters to Timothy and Titus, attributed to Paul, might betray a relatively early adaptation of original Christian practice viz. the roles of church leaders (bishops/elders/pastors) and servants (deacons). For sake of discussion, I am assuming that that “original,” however elusive it might be to us today, was a good thing, worthy of some later pursuit.

[Aside: calling attention to the relative timing (early vs. late) of Christian writings begs the question of how undesirable these blogposts of mine might be. They are, after all, about as “late” as I can get in terms of authorship! Here, I only intend to be comparing the canonical apostolic scriptures and the works of the so-called church fathers, not even distinguishing between the Antenicene fathers and the later ones. Moreover, there are always exceptions to a general rule; many helpful and/or worthy passages will be found in later writings.]

If something is just born, is it only to be pitied as a helpless creature, not fully formed? Some might think here of the long-observed “progression” from movement to sect, and from sect to denominational institution, but that is not really where I’m headed. Larry Hurtado has recently offered a corrective to the idea that a newly born anything is necessarily to be seen as a baby. I agree that a sense of early Christian faith and practice is crucial, and I do not relegate the nascent first-century movement to “helpless infant” or “cute toddler” status. There is no call to apologize for, say, documented aspects of Christianity in the year 48 or 57 or 62. Hurtado sees mid-1st-century Pauline literature as viable: Paul, in writing his letters, presupposed that Christianity was at that time “adequately formed and fully appropriate.” Hurtado has his “historian” hat on as he assesses this way, and the hat fits well. It is good for later observers not to superimpose value judgments (“well, Christianity was little more than embryonic then”) that cloud or falsely view the realities of historical scenarios and changes.

Hurtado goes further in suggesting that observed changes are not necessarily “deviations from a ‘pure’ and ‘original’ form.” Sometimes, changes may merely be adaptations of a neutral original. To question the existence of an original ideal is admittedly uncomfortable for me, restorationist and neo-protestant that I am. In the ecclesiological sphere, I am typically suspicious of changes that occurred well after the launching of the movement—so this bent would affect my reading of Origen, Eusebius, and Tertullian—although generally supportive of changes in organizational methodology in the 20th and 21st centuries. Without delving into specific reasons for this apparent inconsistency, I think there are some fairly good reasons for it, at least with the types of changes I have in mind.

I affirm that changes do not necessarily imply progress. Sometimes, change may be regressive; in other instances, merely adaptive. Take the Windows PC platform (now perhaps more a fortress than a portal from which to see out and do one’s work) as an example. Windows 3.1 was quite functional and seems to me to have been well tested, with little performance concern. From the end user’s perspective, Windows 95 “progressed” yet had serious issues, some of which were fixed in Windows 98. I found Windows XP to represent a more helpful progression, whereas Windows 7 and Windows 8 were beset by issues. The successively opaque versions of Windows might be alternately assessed as progressive or unwisely adaptive to demand. Somewhat similarly, while some ecclesiological adaptations of the first century were arguably progressive, the eventualities that led to the Roman Catholic institution are for me adaptive departures from the original ideal.¹ From the cultural and “market” perspectives, some changes that occurred in, e.g., the 4th century or the 6th were understandable adaptations, while others were misbegotten and fraught with apostasy.

As a historian, one should not, as Hurtado points up, arbitrarily overlay value judgments on changes. As an idealistic Christ-ian, though, I long for authentic, pure faith, untainted by decades of darkness and centuries of clouds. I see the composite picture of the early church as presenting a better, more viable ideal than any ecclesiological reality manifest in any later centuries, despite the sincere efforts of various reformers through the ages. And yes, these are value judgments. I admit it.

¹ For instance, I should think the Apostle Peter would be spiritually indignant if made aware of what transpired over a period of centuries with regard to his person and legacy. Those changes might be viewed as regressive or progressive, depending on one’s viewpoint, but they were in any event substantial departures from the original ideal.

I can still see the translucent glass on portions of the Cedars baptistry walls, with clear glass in the middle. I can still see dear, white-headed Henry as he did his deacon’s duty, checking the temperature of the baptistry water every Sunday morning before the assembly began, just in case someone were to need the water that day. I probably witnessed a few dozen immersions in my early years, but it was not so frequent an occurrence as it should have been. Our church had historically been fairly evangelistic for a while (40s, 50s, 60s), but more of its later efforts were focused overseas. During the 70s and 80s, I don’t think there were ever more than a couple of intentional efforts going on to study with, convert, and immerse people. In my experience, there has never been enough discipling effort in any church, either before or after baptism. (And that reality, in part, led to the offshoot branch of the Church of Christ known in various eras as the Crossroads Movement, or the Boston Movement, or the International CofC. For all their abuses of authority and dogmatic approaches, they were serious disciplers.)

Christian camps tend to produce baptisms, and my camp was no exception. Proportionally speaking, the rate of baptism at summer camp was probably ten times that of most people’s home churches. At some point, I think a rule was put into place that campers at one of the senior high weeks could be immersed regardless of family, but that anyone in junior high or younger would need parental permission. That rule probably just increased some young people’s determination. I remember one evening, down at the camp pool, when three young people were immersed on the same occasion. Singing and wet hugs were part of the camp baptism experience. Although I attribute a great deal of spiritual growth to my camp experiences, I myself was immersed well before junior high age, following three others in my age group, within the confines of the aforementioned indoor baptistry.

Quite distinct from the quarterly or annual (or spotty) baptism practices of some churches, relative immediacy was important in my tradition. “Gospel meetings” (a/k/a “revivals”) might lead to baptisms, but not every time. My church was labeled a “cerebral” one by one reputable, deep-thinking, passionate guest speaker, and I think he was onto something. We didn’t have as many immersions every year as a couple sister churches tended to have. I think we were less prone to heart-responses.

Many jokes have been made about Ivory™ soap’s being (only) 99.44% pure, but I think that’s probably a better stat than that of most other soaps, my wife’s homemade Little Goat’s Natural Soaps excepted. (Ahem. That was a cue for a few of you readers who’ve used her soap to say, “Yeah, Karly’s soaps are great.”)

I have been an Ivory soap user for as long as I can remember. Once in a while, I try another soap but always return to Ivory. I used Irish Spring as a teenager, and that use might have contributed to a few more zits than I would have had otherwise. Coast, Lifebuoy, Dial, Safeguard . . . I’ve tried those and more, but my staple bar of soap has always been Ivory.

For all Ivory’s merits, I absolutely hate the packaging. The wrapping is horribly hard to handle. About 49 of 50 times, unwrapping the bar takes at least a solid minute and results in something like this:I didn’t even mention the outer, clear plastic layer that wraps the whole 8-bar pack. That in itself can require a knife or a set of fingernail clippers or at least a key to remove. But the damp, white-paper inner wrapping comes off only with greater effort, and a lot of mess, pretty much every time. You’d think that a soap that’s been around for 125 years could do better than that with its wrapping. But I keep coming back to it, because what’s inside is what I’m after.

I have been a Christian since I was 9. (The definition of “Christian” is significant but is beside my point here.) And I’ve been an active participant with a number of churches. What I have inside and what the churches have inside can be as difficult to get to as Ivory soap is, given the packaging! Since it’s less comfortable to talk about my individual heart than the “inside” of church groups, I’ll opt to spend a few words on the latter.

The packaging or wrapping of a church might include, but not be limited to, these elements:

Signage

Condition of the parking lot and ease of driving in and out

Attractiveness, condition, and cleanliness of the building (if there is one)

Manner of activities in the assembly (including perceived “style”)

Denominational overlay (whether acknowledged or not)

I prefer my parking lots to be paved, but that’s not too big a deal. I do actually reject some churches as potential “homes” based on such surface-level elements as signage.

A recognized denominational name on the sign? Although I try to be un-denominational, some signs can lead me instantly to reject a church as a possibility for me.

A narrow-minded message? If a sign advertises “fundamental” or “KJV only” (or some such), I can know I wouldn’t be accepted there and would end up either being miserable or causing disunity.

I can leave some churches on the shelf, as it were, never needing to “purchase” or unwrap the “product,” although others might find value in what they’re selling. It takes a little more time and effort to unwrap some other churches. One church we’ve visited twice has a kind of packaging that we think might end up being deceptive, not revealing all that’s inside. (If I’m fair, I suppose that’s true about most groups.) We’re still not sure, but when you tear a couple corners off, the product doesn’t seem to be worth the money, so to speak.

Another church seems to have less wrapping that obscures the product. (I wonder if “truth in advertising” laws could apply to churches? Not really.) This one has some nicely conceived outer packaging but also some inner wrapping that might present some problems for me. (Oh, how I hate finally getting that first layer off the product, only to find that I have to struggle with yet another layer of wrapping.)

Yet another church, visited once recently on a special occasion, is from a brand I have “trusted” (to an extent) for many years. I suppose that, if I’m honest with myself, I’d have to admit that I keep returning to this brand in some way because I know its history—but the Ivory isn’t always as pure as the wrapping claims, if you know what I mean. And then, come to find out, even the best bars of this particular brand were only about 77% pure to start with. At any rate, the packaging of this one local church included some noticeably outdated communication styles—think veggie burger in a 1950s McDonald’s wrapper or maybe hip-hop on an audio cassette. More important than the wrapping: the product found inside was lacking, to my eyes and ears and soul.

We’ll see how the process goes. Maybe, just maybe, the traditional wrapping in terms of church building cosmetics will ultimately reveal a pure, purposeful, viable church group “product.”

People in societies or sub-societies sometimes want change, and groups may band together to begin “movements.” In music history, the Renaissance, the thought and work of the Florentine Camerata, Romanticism, Impressionism, and Neoclassicism are examples of movements. Others could be identified, such as the educational band music quasi-movement of the 70s and 80s.

In religious history, many movements have been observed, including the the various stripes of Protestant Reformation, the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation, and the movement of Anglicans that became Wesleyan Methodism. The religious movement with which I am most familiar, the frontier American Restoration Movement, was at one point truly a movement, manifesting both distinctive features and corporate energy.

How to keep a good idea and a good movement alive before it crystallizes or ossifies . . . that is the question.

I’ve read with interest a recent discussion between high-profile scholar-authors Ben Witherington and Larry Hurtado about the latter’s new book which treats aspects of the formation and distinctiveness of early Christianity. (In one sense, early Christianity was a movement within first-century Jewish religion, and it serves well for us to keep this reality in mind.) About a third of the way through the interview, Witherington makes the following comment, and I appreciate the thoughtful analysis:

Reading your review of Stark’s 10 factors on why a religious movement succeeds, you point to the fact that the movement on the one hand must maintain some continuity with its cultural setting so it is not seen as totally alien and incomprehensible, but at the same time it must have some distinguishing features, presumably appealing distinguishing features, that set it apart from its setting, including certain behavioral demands made on insiders. The boundaries between insider and outsider must be porous enough to readily allow outsiders in, but at the same time the identity formation must be clear enough that the difference between between insiders and outsiders is reasonable clear.

A movement, then, may “succeed” by being

attractive to and connected with people (appealing within a culture)

distinctive and demanding—worth joining because it has (1) something unique to offer to prospective adherents and (2) something to ask of them

Speaking on a practical level, a movement will also need to provide a way for people to join up.

Tomorrow: being in the world but not of it (whatever that means)—and joining in the Way in various ways

With proper-noun naming (denominating) comes more of a sense of formal organization, as detailed in the last post here. A denominated group may manifest unwillingness to have its name questioned. This was my experience when teaching a junior high Bible class as a young instructor in a Christian academy. I had the one Bible class (along with band and choir classes I taught) and took them all very seriously; the worksheet below is one assignment I devised for the students.

Worksheet used during a course on the book of Acts at a CofC school

One would think that I’d’ve been applauded for asking the 8th graders to “go back to the Bible” to find various descriptions and labels for the church. Not so. The Bible class was actually taken away from me midstream. In my view (obviously not that of a certain school administrator and, I suspect, some others with clout), this was an improper riddance of me as a Bible teacher. More important, it was an improper pushing-aside of some very simple, yet significant, facts from scripture.

It is hurtful to be judged unworthy by the group from which you originate when you are only trying to bring growth. Although I was over those particular wounds within a couple years, in a very real sense, a general anxiety in connection with potentially being judged improperly has remained with me.

Relatively consistently for a quarter-century now, I have been seriously interested in undenominational Christianity, relegating group names to a low berth if proper names must be used at all. This is a small part of restoring and unifying, but it is a part nonetheless.